


Out of Orbit

by Meiloorun



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Drinking, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-19 03:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3595344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meiloorun/pseuds/Meiloorun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What follows the divergence of two falling stars? Leaving the Order was the first step, but getting off Coruscant won’t be as swift and painless for Ahsoka Tano. Anakin reminisces about the early days. Post-TCW-S5</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One: Cantina Crawl

**Author's Note:**

> If I had my way, this would be a comic book. But my fingers are the tools of my trade. Short Round Fingers.

 

After leaving Anakin between the Temple columns, Ahsoka had retreated to her quarters in tearful silence, trying to fold her mind into a meditative trance to ease the aftershock of her decision.

It was not until she had laid her back against the cool steel door of her dormitory that she questioned how any being, Jedi or not, could call this spartan, windowless room a real home. How had a lifelong attachment to serving the greater good had served her in the end? With old travel receipts, spare droid parts on her floor, and the cold comfort of solitude. As she turned over these and other questions in her mind, the sting abated in her chest and her thoughts were lifted to the stars.

With hardened resolve, Ahsoka knew that she did not belong and drifted into an empty meditation.

When she awoke, the sun was setting and the fairy lights of of the surface city burst into view. It had been twelve standard hours on Coruscant since Ahsoka turned down the Order’s apology. No one had come to disturb her, for which she was thankful. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself spiraling in all manners of direction, like the fragments of an asteroid field. The next few steps in her journey would lead her far away from Coruscant. That meant there was business to be attended to before she left. But where to start? 

Unwavering, Ahsoka sheathed herself in her aeien silk cape-- the only item of any value in her quarters-- and descended into the lower levels of Coruscant. Weaving through the crowds, she saw more than one trooper place their hand on their blaster as she passed by, clearly recognizing her from the earlier bulletins.  Paying no mind, she followed a carefully plotted path into a quiet sabacc parlor amongst a den of gambling salons. The soft, nebulaic smoke of a death stick snaked out of the kitchen, but Ahsoka found a familiar, poised silhouette seated in a plush booth in the corner.

The Jedi Master still wore his signature polite grin, however, Ahsoka was caught unaware by his conciliatory gaze. Ever the gentleman, Obi-wan signaled the barkeep with a delicate finger and offered her a seat.

“All things considered, could we try to be civilized?”

Their meeting was foretold only by instinct. This bar was where her Master had first taught her to perform a Jedi mind trick, and where Obi-wan had first taught him. Ahsoka allowed herself a dubious smirk at the Jedi but sat down with great relief. After all of their assignments together, she knew that this was one of the Master’s usual undercover haunts, and that there were still words to be shared between them before she left. The sleepy patrons at the tables were too caught up in their card game to notice their presence, and the staff didn’t mind the lull in business. When a frosty stein was set down in front of Ahsoka, Obi-wan tilted his glass to her.

“To your new path in life,” he saluted with a consoling smile. He was not here to change her mind. Thus, for show of good spirit, she daringly met his glass with her own.

Ahsoka’s force signature had always felt masked in Anakin’s presence, such that Obi-wan would say that she may as well be his shadow-- but that was all in the past now. She had acted every part the phantom of his former padawan’s exploits, flickering like a corpusant flame out of the corner of everyone’s vision to dastardly avail. She was a mirror of Anakin's unruly behavior. This was the reason she had been treated as such a threat to the Republic, why they had been so quick to settle on a plea to put her to death before her Master had stepped in with the proper evidence. 

Together, Anakin and Ahsoka shared a mastery of technique and a united will that made them an unstoppable force of nature, but the two started off remarkably unbalanced in spite of their individual skills. At times, Anakin never seemed to stop exuding energy, losing himself in the conviction of battle. And Ahsoka would follow him without question, naive in her steadfast pursuit of knowledge, like an comet trapped in eternal freefall. What a pity that the combination of their brilliant efforts were devoted to an intergalactic war.

Her and Obi-wan's force signatures, however, converged like a high and low pressure storm cell. As enlightened as they both were, the sense of danger remained eminent as they softly reassured each other in the din of the bar.

It seemed having Ahsoka as a padawan only served to magnify Anakin’s bad habits-- the exact failings that kept him from earning a seat on the Council. Padme had confirmed-- Obi-wan somberly explained to Ahsoka-- that Anakin had arrived at her Senate quarters the night before with the sullenness of a Rancor beast, but that his frustration had subsided. The senator expressed her regret concerning Ahsoka, and assured that Anakin’s stay would cause no impediment to her conference schedule. He was lucky that she would be there for him in his time of need and wanted to extend her civilities to Ahsoka. Anakin would be fine. 

“Until his next assignment, that is.”

Ahsoka took a deep drink and then set her gaze on the bottom of her glass, looking through the amniotic mixture of booze and ice at a distant truth.

“Good," she replied.

The alcohol left a spicy, warm burn in her throat that made her want to cough, but she didn’t dare. She was already biting her tongue just to keep from venturing that particular subject any further without confirming or denying what Obi-wan was so casual to suggest. With a similar air of restraint, Obi-wan finished his drink and signaled for another.

Ahsoka knew that the Jedi Master had a prolific understanding of the sleazy underworld and that he was well-accustomed to his learned habit, but this was no reconnaissance mission. His drinking only betrayed his nerves, his anxiety for her and the new direction in which she was moving.

All the same, she could not expect him to admit it aloud, as much as it showed in his eyes.

“Do you think I am making a mistake, too?”

Obi-wan inspected the pleasant Togrutan features of his former student and sensed something entirely different from their previous exchanges-- the same crisp curiosity in her intent, strained with the age-old vestiges of detachment of the Jedi teachings, mixed with a new, unflinching brand of esteem. Was she really so different from the day before?

“Anakin said that I was throwing it all away. Abandoning the Jedi Order in its great time of need.”

“He said all that?” Obi-wan quirked an eyebrow at her.

“About as much,” Ahsoka picked at her nails. 

Jedi Master Kenobi took a staggered breath and turned his glass in his hand.

“Every being is entitled to the choice to live their lives as they please. The consequence is that the Force is in every action we take, regardless.” The Jedi replied thoughtfully, holding his glass to his chin. “I cannot say I wholly agree with your decision-- because I would rather fight with you than against you, my dear--but I will say this: I am not yet your enemy.”

“So, this meeting is to say farewell AND to deliver a threat?” Ahsoka quipped back knowingly, her white brow raised with suspicion. “From the Council?”

“Officially, yes.” Obi-wan conceded, taking an urgent sip from his glass. “Should you intend to remain in the war effort, I strongly suggest that you consider the Republic’s interests. However-- this is important-- it is not my purpose to inform your decisions from this moment on, any more than it is theirs. The Council may want to know what you plan to do, but quite frankly, it is none of their business.”

“Though I will admit, I am rather curious...” Obi-wan punctuated his sage advice with whimsical intonation. The Jedi Master pulled out a dark bundle from the folds of his robe and set it on the glass table between them.

“A going away present. Courtesy of the old folk’s home.”

Obi-wan then slid the wool-wrapped package across the table, and without asking, Ahsoka knew that her lightsabers were wrapped inside. The crystals flexed to her presence, and she felt a needful itch in her fingers.

“Strange, that you would arm a defector from the Jedi Order.”

“Indeed. You’d do well not to leave these behind.”

“Master Obi-wan--”

“These sabers are more than just weapons, Ahsoka, and you should not turn your back without them! As I said, you’re not my enemy. Rather, I would like you to remain safe during these dangerous times, if only through the power of suggestion. Do with them what you will, but do not abandon them out of pride. There are too many relics here.”

Obi-wan’s gentle tirade had all the pomp of a winded Academy professor, Ahsoka noted. His eyes flicked back and forth across her face as if he was reading right from scripture. But the lilt to his pedantic drawl made Ahsoka’s heart swell with fondness for the Jedi. They traded silent affection for each other with their eyes, each shimmering bright in the grey, dimmed light of the cantina.

“Please take them. I had Captain Rex make a monstrous effort to get them out of internal security, as a personal apology to you.”

Ahsoka reluctantly drew the package towards her. She knew those sabers inside and out, however she knew that she was hesitant to again use them as she once had. Obi-wan wore the look of satisfaction, but the aged lines in his face highlighted a false sense of security.

“You shouldn’t ask Rex to do your dirty work.”

“There’s no point keeping him on a leash. He’s already rolling in it,” Obi-wan snapped back, motioning for another top-off from the Rodian barmaid.

Ahsoka smiled shyly and stoked the condensation away from her glass.

“How the are the boys taking it?” she asked softly. Obi-wan visibly deflated.

Ahsoka’s devotion to the 501st legion had long surpassed the Council’s expectations and given them cause for concern. Other padawans under the helm of the GAR had learned restraint and strategy in the face of their enemies. As well, they adopted a sense of elitism over their squadrons of clones as if they were merely fodder to distract the enemy.

Not Ahsoka.

In every way her Master’s student, Ahsoka managed to twist the protocol to her needs. In her budding years as a padawan, Ahsoka spent most if not all of her time among the barracks, nonchalantly navigating the sea of familiar faces with remarkable ease. Sure, she had her own quarters in the sparse dormitories on the Upper level, but when she was deployed on a star cruiser, they trained together, ate together, and even shared sleeping quarters. It was not uncommon for Ahsoka to tuck into a spare bunk after an evening of playing man-on-man dejarik with her sparring partners and retelling past battles to the shinies long past lights out.

As they essentially spent their formative years together, the troopers became Ahsoka’s dearest allies, on the battlefield and off of it. And to them, she became a constant source of inspiration.  At first, her likeness to Shaak Ti definitely played into the clones receptiveness to the unseasoned padawan. The Togrutan Jedi Master was an unmatched beauty and talented strategist on Kamino; witnessing a gangly, teenaged, sun-lit version of their poised General-- with a fearless, foolhardy attitude to boot-- standing between them and the onslaught of a droid army, had magnified the 501st’s pride for her tenfold. They were military, but they were still human.

“Morale is better, now that the truth has been revealed, though the debriefs are abysmally short.” Obi-wan admitted. “The incident is being treated as an internal Jedi affair; clones don’t get clearance.”

But Ahsoka had lived with the clones as if she was one of them for the past three years, and she really could have forgotten that she didn’t belong-- if not for the ever-present weight of the sabers at her waist. It had been a couple months since she had really spent time in the barracks on Anakin’s star cruiser. Now, she realized, she was never going back, especially after her recent turn on the receiving end of their blasters. 

Everything between the moment Ahsoka had scrapped her first droid and the present was a blur of embittered memories. When the Order wanted to distance her from the troopers, they had asked her to teach, but to no consequence, for every step she took was into deeper danger. The war had spread throughout the galaxy like a plague that no one wanted to take responsibility for. Perhaps because the true party to blame was just as unbelievable. Barriss was a battle-seasoned warrior, and three years her senior. 

“All of Coruscant already thinks that I am a dangerous fugitive, thanks to Tarkin and his Grand Ol’ expedient judiciary.” Ahsoka set her glass down with frustration. “Have they sentenced Barriss?”

“...Earlier today, yes. Transferred this evening. She’s being taken to a non-disclosed holding facility in the Outer Rim under the Chancellor's jurisdiction. She’ll never see the Core Worlds again. We strongly suspect that she was operating independently from the major Separatist factions...”

“Oh.”

“Have I said too much, and do I have to make you promise not to follow her?” Obi-wan gave her a pleading look. “Trust me, Ahsoka. You do not want to follow her.”

“Once, I would have found your lack of faith in me disturbing,” Ahsoka said with a short laugh, “I know not to follow that path, Master--”

“Ahsoka--”

“--But I can’t promise you anything for certain. The only thing I am sure of is that leaving is the right thing to do while the opportunity is still present.”

“Well said. The truth hurts.”

“It’s not the whole truth, though.”

“It never is, my friend.” Obi-wan pushed himself out of the cushioned corner and stood to leave. “I hope that I’ve disappointed you for the last time.”

Ahsoka also tried to stand, but Obi-wan grasped her shoulder, keeping her firmly planted in her seat.

“Have you already forgotten the rules of discretion? Never leave the way you came in, and never leave together.”

“I just...I didn’t think...Hah, I wasn't ready to say goodbye.” Ahsoka voiced with intrepid sarcasm. She rested back against her seat, blindly seeking out the half-emptied libation on the table. “Shows what I know…”

Obi-wan smiled down at her, squeezing her shoulder gently. She laid her palm over his in turn, but their eyes did not meet. This time, the reflexes of their old religion gave them resolve.

“May the Force be with you, Ahsoka Tano.”

“And you, Master Kenobi. Always.”

From behind her glass, she watched Obi-wan wind through the fresh throng of bodies that had filled the club, and flash his republic credits at the bartender. With one final endearing look back at her, Obi-wan Kenobi pulled his hood over his head and marched out into the pearlescent sheen of the Coruscanti nightlife, leaving a once former student brewing in the den of shadows to ponder her next destination.

 

 


	2. Reflex Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin reminisces about the early days with Ahsoka. Flashback to the original Clone Wars movie.

Like a powerless ship, there is no where to go but down. It took little time to wander away from perfect columns perched on the perimeter of the Jedi Temple. Anakin was so lost in thought, his movements seemed like a dull reflex to some predetermined path. His destination was the Senate quarters where he knew Padme would be waiting for good news that could not be delivered. Still, he continued in his droid-like ministrations towards her chambers. That was his duty as her husband. As a Jedi, his intentions were much more flummoxed, and with the lingering intonations of his former padawan scorched on his patterns of thought, he could not fathom returning to the temple just yet.  

He had criticized Ahsoka for leaving her home behind, but was the beastly fortress truly a home? For nine long years, Anakin's home had been on Tattooine, and even after being accepted as a padawan learner, his heart still lingered on the dusty planet with his mother-- until the fateful day of her death when Anakin had truly realized that his home was where his heart wanted to be. As Padme treaded those sands with him in their adventure before Geonosis, Anakin found more relief with her then the Jedi Temple would ever offer to him with any lesson. 

Perhaps that is what he had unwittingly taught his well-intentioned student.

Shamefully, Anakin's mind drifted into the recesses of his memory...

.  
.  
.

Anakin was due to report back to the counsel after settling the dispute with Jabba and reuniting the Huttling to his father. He also desperately needed to thank his wife with secret kisses and hopefully a day’s leave from the temple. Once he was through babysitting, of course.

Ahsoka joined him in the co-pilot’s chair with a smile set to her features. He had to reevaluate his initial thoughts on their mission together. First and foremost, the idea of helping out Jabba was absolutely more repulsive than Jabba himself. Anakin managed to stay objective though, due to the fact that he was far more distracted by Ahsoka’s actions than his own.

At the end of it all, seeing her relieved expression as the Huttling cooed at his bulbous scoundrel of father had convinced Anakin not to mind the mission altogether.

A win is a win. Curious though, that the Master Yoda thought him to be the suitable teacher for this unusually gifted and entitled youngling when he struggled daily to keep his own emotions in check. Perhaps he could see that Anakin needed to be challenged with the responsibilities of a mentor to become a fully-realized Jedi Knight. Yoda could also be inciting morale for the other younglings at the Temple, or contributing to the image of the Jedi Council and the power of the GAR. But surely, they would not rely on a child to achieve these things.

Maybe this was just the will of the Force.

The two red suns rose above the grey dunes in the distance, turning the sky a sickly pink. Another day had passed on Tatooine and he did not intend to stay for another. He settled at the controls and woke the engine with a groan. Then he checked the fuel gage, disengaged the landing gear, and vented the circulatory system. Sand suddenly rained down on them from the access panels.

“Ahsoka! Did you forget to seal the air vents when we landed?!”

“I didn’t forget. I didn’t know! You didn’t say it would do that if I left it open!”

“It’s sand! In every direction! It gets everywhere. Especially in the equipment! You always seal the vents in an unknown environment.”

“I had to! It was stinky! You said that you had been here before anyway!”

“And I know to always seal the vents!” 

“I’m sorry, Master! But you should have mentioned it!” Ahsoka rebutted with a scolding tone. 

With a harangued groan, Anakin shook the loose sand from his head and scraped as much sand as possible away from the dashboard. Ahsoka screwed her face up into a scowl swept some away from the secondary controls. 

“Never mind. Let’s get going. Just don’t do it again! Get the door sealed. We’ll have to ventilate the cabin once we’re out of the atmosphere.”

Ahsoka scoffed, “I didn’t think much of sand before coming to this planet, but I don’t think you like it at all."

“....No, I do not like sand," he replied stiffly. Reiterating that fact at this point seemed foolish, but was he supposed to spoon-feed this child? Surely he had a reputation at the temple and she had some knowledge of the things he had never tried to hide from the Jedi Council. Still, the padawan chattered on. Perhaps Anakin was not as well-known as he had assumed. 

"And that heat is the worst I've ever experienced! What in the universe can survive on this planet besides those Hutts?"

"Scavengers. Thieves. And their slaves." Anakin engaged the thrusters and escalated through sparse clouds in the neon sky. 

"Whatever they are, I bet they have scales and eat their own leavings to survive."

Anakin could not contain the bark of laughter that split his icy resolve.

"I mean, there was sand on my home planet too, but never this much! This, it’s unbearable!"

Likewise, Anakin thought to himself. He risked a sideways glance at the young girl. She was collecting grains of sand by the handful with gentle sweeps of her palm, guided by the force. Her hands delicately parsed over the co-pilot's station and deposited the sand onto the cabin floor. Obi-wan would have chided her for using the force so absent-mindedly, Anakin thought to himself, but all in all, it was a rather thoughtful effort.  Anakin had never thought of it himself when dealing with the sandy fallout of space travel. 

He took the bait. "Where is your home planet anyway?"

"...You don't know?"

"Just because I can use the Force doesn't mean I know everything without asking!" he sounded back with the same ludicrous tone as the youngling. 

“My impression was that you didn’t want to show any interest in me."

"What can I say?" Anakin replied listlessly. "I've changed my mind and now I am curious."

"You really don't know?" she said with a slightly less smug intonation. 

"Know what?"

"About my people?"

"I know you're Togruta, but that could really mean anything. I've met slaves and freemen from all over--"

"Okay, alright-- I'm no slave. My home planet. It's called Shili. It’s in the northern expanded region of the Hydian Way."

"Old Republicans then. I know the type. Where did you grow up?"

Ahsoka passed her hand over his side of the dashboard and gave him a narrowed glare.

"I grew up at the Jedi Temple, Master Skywalker." 

"You know what I mean. Where did you come from?"

"....Corvala. That's the capital...I was born there."

"Corvala, huh…I've flown a mining freighter from Corvala before. Clever design. Bad wiring. They’re uncommonly used as smuggling vessels, but because they’re intended to ship large quantities of diamonds, they’re bound to catch anyone’s attention in the Outer Rim.”

Ahsoka gave him a dull look and a smirk. “Then you know _something_ about Shili?”

“Some things. What they export. What I hear from other pilots. What can you tell me?” 

There was a pregnant pause from Ahsoka that irked Anakin, as if she was silently chiding him for his ignorance, but he could not restrain the amusement that filled him. Her manner in that moment was strikingly similar to Obi-wan. Anakin could almost hear the lilt of restraint in his mind as he locked eyes with her, but her gaze shifted away, beyond the controls and into the clouds.

“Not a lot. I’ve never been back.”

“So, you were born in the fortress of an ancient diamond-mining civilization hidden in a tropical paradise? No wonder you think you're indestructible."

"Woah. Alright, Sky Guy. Hold on a minute. I wouldn't make snap judgements about you based on your home planet."

"Too late for that."

"What?...Oh, your home planet is-- Oh no! I'm...sorry, Master..."

"Don't apologize. You're almost right: no scales. But the foods is not any better than shit when you're a slave."

“Oh.”

"When did you come to the temple?" Anakin prompted her, hoping to distract the conversation from his own past.

"It was during the early Trade Federation disputes. Master Shak Ti had opened negotiations with the Avontine--”

“The who?”

“The aristocracy on Shili. There is no single elected leader, just representatives from the prevailing tribes. Anyway, the Avontine allowed the Republic to begin construction on a base to regulate covert trade operations along the Hydian Way. The Council was allowed access to an unpopulated planet in the Ehosiq system.”

“Kiros. I remember this story…. But it _was_ populated, wasn’t it? There was a widely publicized crackdown on a smuggling crisis that apparently spanned several decades. The Republic forces were ordered to withdraw for the investigation.”

“Yes. The tribes who settled there stole from Shili for many years, but in the end, the Senate issued them a protected status.”

“The Mining Guilds wanted to refute the decision so they could reclaim their losses. So, while the Senate’s forces were still disassembling the base, the Trade Federation-- hot-heads that they are-- stormed in to enforce a blockade. They suddenly found themselves surrounded by a lot more than diamonds.”

“They were forced to leave. The Republic fleet only lost one ship though. They were shot down trying to respond to a call for aid from the capital where a man claiming to be a Jedi had been captured.”

“That’s right...” Anakin replied, recognition dawning in his eyes.

“That’s when I met Master Plo. He brought me to the Temple where I belonged.”

“I’m guessing that you originally wanted him as your Master…” Anakin replied, thinking back on his own experience. He had assumed through Master Jin's insistence that he would be Anakin's teacher, but sometimes that is not the true intention of the Force. 

“I did. But Master Yoda said that I could learn a lot more from you.” Ahsoka said with a grand smile. 

“Did he?” Anakin could imagine the wrinkly, green Master laughing in his mind. 

“Yup. And he was right. I learned that you don’t like surprises. Or sand.”

Ahsoka waved a palm past Anakin's hands on the steering and lured a small cloud of sand up and away. Then, she cast it over her shoulder, without looking back. 

"We'll both be learning a lot more about each other going forward, won't we, Master?"

.  
.  
.

"Yes," Anakin thought as he reached the doors to Padme's quarters, mirroring his own response on that long-passed conversation. "Another mission, another lesson." 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Critique/Ideas appreciated!


End file.
